Update: 2007 Gumball 3000 FATALITY COVER UP
The 911 Porsche that crashed into the Volkswagen killing the driver and putting the passenger in critical condition was apparently the car of Nick Morley and Matthew McConville. As you can see by the banner I have included in this post, The Official Gumball 3000 website has shut down the forum and stopped answering all questions.
Thanks to some Instant Messaging the folks over at Jalopnik have given us Gumball 3000 followers an update on the unfortunate fatal crash over in Macedonia:
“everyone involved has been told to shut up so I’m going around them, calling authorities…they tried covering the shit up, they’ve had 24 hours to issue a press release…and nothing of the sort…they kept it from all other gumballers too”
Fleeing the scene and covering it up is going to prove to be a HUGE NEGATIVE blow for Maximillion and his beloved Gumball 3000 brand, not to mention Nick and Matthew of the Porsche. This is all going to create one hell of a firestorm over in Europe and most likely end the Gumball 3000 race on that continent for good.
At this time, the race organizers have yet to answer anyones phone call inquiries into this matter.
3pm UPDATE: More Background Info
Macedonian TV Station A1 said the drivers (Nick Morley and Matthew McConville) later climbed into another car, a BMW, and tried to leave the country. However organizers of the rally said the drivers returned to the scene 20 minutes later. The drivers of the Porsche 911 Turbo Techart allegedly got out of their crashed car and ran off, local police said.
The Techart Porsche 911 Turbo of Nick Morley and Matthew McConville hit an oncoming car, at a reported speed of more than 200km/h, after which, according to media reports, they tried to escape the country via the nearby border post.
4pm UPDATE: Co Pilot No Longer Following/Reporting Gumball 3000
After sleuthing around the net trying to find more information on the crash as well as the current situation, I came accross a site I had bookmarked and is NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
http://www.alk.com/gumball/gallery.asp
There is NO MENTION anywhere on the site about their involvement with THE GUMBALL 3000.
CoPilot Live GPS (by Alk Technologies) is the Official Navigation Sponsor of the Gumball 3000. Their link no longer displays any sort of coverage of the Gumball 3000. Here is a picture of Maximillion Cooper in front of the media board and XZIBIT being shown how to use the software.
4:30pm UPDATE: Gumball 3000 Press Statement
Team Polizei’s Alex Roy and Michael Ross withdraw from the rally and I fully agree that its the only appropriate thing to do after this unfortunate tragedy. Their recent post on Team Polizei’s Website states “In view of events of the past day, Alex Roy and Michael Ross of Team Polizei have withdrawn from the 2007 Gumball Rally. They are driving to Bratislava to thank the fans that have traveled from so far. They will make a further statement at 10.00GMT.”
Here is the Gumball 3000 Press Release more then 24 hours after the incident.
Gumball 3000 is very saddened to announce a road accident which occurred yesterday, May 2nd, involving a participating vehicle and a local vehicle in Macedonia. Exact details are still filtering through, but below are the facts as of midday May 3rd 2007 issued by the Macedonian authorities.
An adult Macedonian male aged 67 died in hospital from a heart attack following the incident where the two cars collided. The participants in the rally were held in custody last night with a preliminary court judgment expected today.
Organizers of the rally would like to express its deepest condolences to the family of the victim for this tragic accident.
Maximillion Cooper, founder of the Rally says: “It is with extreme sadness I have to make an announcement of this nature in the events nine year history.. The event is organized with each local authorities support and permission, and drivers are under strict stipulation by abide by the laws and road regulations of the country they are driving through. It is extremely sad for this unfortunate accident to have occurred. I am informed that the incident was reported immediately by the drivers. Both drivers are extremely traumatized by this occurrence.”
5:30pm UPDATE: Nicholas Morley and Matthew McConville Info
According to reports, Nicholas Morley, 30, and Matthew McConvile, 32, both British citizens, have been arrested in FYROM (Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonia) for a hit & run incident when their Techart Porsche 911 Turbo crashed into an elderly couple’s VW Golf, killing Vladimir Cepuljoski, 67 and seriously injuring his wife, Margarita Cepuljoski who remains hospitalized in critical condition. Apparently, the two Brits tried to escape by getting into another car but they were caught by FYROM police.
6:30pm Final UPDATE: Gumball 3000 CANCELLED
May 3, 2007: Aftermath
According to two sources familiar with the cross-Europe road rally, the car that picked up Nick Morley and Matthew McConville after the deadly hit-and-run incident was allegedly described as a Gumball BMW with Russian plates. Sources have speculated that it could be the #19 Russian BMW.
“An investigative judge of Struga Court ordered 30 days of temporary detention to the British citizen Nicholas Morley, Makfax’s correspondent reported. Morley has been detained for the purposes of the investigation into yesterday’s traffic accident that took place at Struga-Qafasan road, which left one Macedonian citizen dead. The victim’s wife, who has suffered heavy injuries in the accident, is in critical condition. The tragic traffic accident occurred on the Struga-Qafasan road near KMR Petrol station. The speeding Porsche, driven by the Briton, crossed over the center lane and crashed into Golf with Ohrid registration plates.”
It was also reported that the driver and passenger of the BMW with Russian license plates were released by Macedonian authorities after initially being taken into custody. As for the official charges against Morley they are for:
“heavy violation of traffic safety” and “failure to provide help to an injured person.”
May 4, 2007: 2nd Fatality
Margarita Chepunjoska, the wife of Vladimir, who died May 2nd, 2007, has passed away today in the Skopje Clinic Center.
May 4, 2007: Maximillion Cooper’s Interview with the BBC
Maximillian Cooper’s interview with the BBC: “60 kph…which is well within the speed limit…it would appear to be a genuine sort of accident where this elderly couple just pulled out in front of them.”
May 9, 2007: Aftermath Pictures of the Techart Porsche 911 Turbo, Volkswagen Golf
[Source: Gumball3000.com, Jalopnik.com, Wikipedia.com, Times.co.uk, GTspirit.com, Gumball3000blog.com, Gumball144.com/CMS, BBC.co.uk, Metro.co.uk]
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December 16th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Whatever the accusations of speeding, which obviously occurs when they can get away with it and when it’s considered safe to do so under the circumstances, like anyone else, it’s obvious that this was a relatively low speed accident, due to the close (touching?!) proximity of the two vehicles at rest. The Porsche would be half a mile down the road already and they’d both be unrecognisable if this was a head on collision at 200kph.
I wasn’t there but it looks to me like the Porsche braked into the ditch, hence the low level frontal damage, then the rear end flipped up and around and landed on the Golf, which tried to turn into the ditch to avoid collision also.
60kph Porsche at initial braking point is probably about right.
200kph at impact? Utterly impossible.
Either way, never shut the door on someone trying to overtake as the Porsche probably just ran out of road if they did anything wrong atall.
Condolences to ALL involved, as no-one ever does this on purpose (except suicide cases), regardless of how much money they have!
March 1st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
your an idiot. find pictures of the other side of the VW, its in a V. Most likely a relatively low speed (130mph). This enough to seriously damage internal organs. You can kill people by hitting them in the spleen, what do you think a 1400 pound car cound do
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:21 am
I think you mean “you’re” an idiot. ‘Your’ is possessive as in ‘your tiny brain’, whereas ‘you’re’ means you are. Simple really. Much like you.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
You are showing your lack of education when you don’t know enough to capitalize the first word of your sentences. You are showing your ignorance by saying that 130 mph is low speed. Sentences end with a period. Please show a bit of respect for the two lives lost in the crash.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
G: 130 is low speed? There’s absolutely no way that either of those cars would be recognizable at that speed. It wouldn’t push a V into the car, it would taco the damn thing in half and the resulting velocity would have destroyed both cars completely by rolling them. NO WAY was that a head-on going that fast
March 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
tards ever heard of a roll cage? stops you car from crushin when you have a crash
March 31st, 2008 at 1:04 am
The Porshe probably had a cage but I’m positive that the VW didn’t, and even with a cage the Porshe would have still been destroyed almost beyond recognition as well as VW. Obviously the VW wasn’t damaged in a 130mph wreck and only survived as well as it did because of it’s nonexistant cage.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:28 am
130mph?? no way… check out some videos of Top Gear on Youtube were they “simulate” a head-on collision of exactly 60kph … the outcome looks a bit the same… no roll cage whatsoever would withstand an impact of an almost 1600kg car hitting another object of +1000kg at 130mph (200kph!!)
August 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am
[...] about everyone remembers the 2007 Gumball 3000 Rally (Read about the ATTEMPTED COVER UP HERE) which came to a screeching crash of a halt last year resulting in the deaths of 2 Macedonians. [...]
August 30th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Regardless of what speed the car was going when it hit the Golf, why are people not expressing sympathy to the victim’s family???
And the guys who didn’t care enough to try and see if they could have helped the crash victims should be totally ashamed of their behavior!!! I realize that people in stressful situations act in shock and don’t always do what is logical, but that still doesn’t excuse what they did. The cowards only thought of themselves.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
[...] Update: 2007 Gumball 3000 FATALITY COVER UP [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
this is very sad story.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Surley if they were going 200Kph both cars would be worse than this?
Its a bad thing to spead but it seams like an accident
September 30th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Dave is a friggin moron,
so is anyone else claiming to be a crash investigation expert. You were not there and just because you’ve seen a couple of movies with crashes doesn’t make you an expert.
You do not know any details of the accident except from what you’ve read here and you think you know how it happened? Wake up to yourselves fools.
If you knew anything about gumball you’d see its just a bunch of rich morons with no respect for others lives who constantly break laws on roads when they obviously have no driving skill.
If they wanna race, keep it to the track, don’t endanger others lives by being an absolute idiot.
Anyone who defends these guys needs a major wake up call - this is reality, not some stupid movie